Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The one I'm getting had a dust suppressant agent in it, I will however read the label carefully before using it.

I had some barrels that had a synthetic hydraulic fluid never could get them clean enough to use. Hope you have better luck with those that contained oil. Fill them with water and wait a day or so, if there is a film on the surface then they are not clean.

I got an ibc and it had contained veggie oil. Cut it in half (the top was smashed and I decided to use it in the basement) and took it down to the car wash on Monday as the temperature finally broke the freezing mark. Thought I could get the congealed veggie oil out with lots of pressure and warm water at the car wash. It just wasn't warm enough. My clothes got clean and wet. I will have to wait until temps get warmer and try again.

I have I think successfully cleaned an IBC with degreaser and then Heavy Duty detergent. Left full of water for a couple of days taken a sample to work next week to check if any contaminant left ( joys of working in a lab) but it looks ok no sign of any oil left

I was just trusting the smell - no smell no oil

we use beer-line cleaner to give drums and ibc's a final clean

J, was just about to suggest a mix of caustic soda on dan for the veggie oil. i think beer line cleaner is a weakish mix of this.

the reason i say the caustic is because it does a great job of turning fats and oils into soap.

caustic soda on dan?? He prolly wont like that

LOL, sorry dan, how are you eyes?

The IBC I just picked up is now started its little cleaning process :

the tag says "Ingham chicken" Propionic acid used in animal feed , even got the "suggested amount for raw feeds" labeled on the sides - Im quite confident its been used ( Once , it looks brand new ) for holding preservative / anti-fungul / anti-bacterial additive for chicken pellets or something similar

I understand the concern with used IBC's containing chemicals , thats why I was up till 2 last night researching this propionic acid , Im pretty confident now that I can clean it out and have no harmful effects . Im not being flippant , the produce out of this system will be fed to my daughter , not just me , so Im triple checking and quadruple cleaning every part of it as I build it

Its now sitting in the yard full of tap water , 12.5 kilo's of natural lake salt ( pool salt from bunnings , raw product no additives ) and a 1500 Lph pump circulating it to get the salt to move around & dissolve / push the water against the sides & wash it a bit

Im intending to leave it like that for a week , let it dry , then do another mix with less salt , then wash with clean water . The outlet is right over an outside laundry drain so I can just open & let it go - not salting the soil

The other IBC that I'll be using as a tank has had Black Molasses in it , looks like its been dry for ages and smells really clean . That will be getting a good scrub , maybe with some salt , just to be safe .
The label says 0.11% copper , so Im hoping that theres not much of that left , but theres always the sacrificial goldfish to test the water after its been running for a few weeks ( in a month or so )

Boris,
I hope I didn't cause you too much stress over this, but I am glad that you now feel confident. The molasses one will be fine. I always, even if I think I know what the chemical is, do an MSDS search and double check, especially the effects on things other than humans.

dont worry about it - Im glad you bought up all the points you did , it made me really research what I was getting into

I thinik there should be a thread like this that lets people know exactly whats safe to use / how to clean and what to avoid ( even if its free )

I imagine that not every newbie is going to be as thourough in their research and cleaning as some , and may end up slowly poisoning themselves /their fish / the environment

Thanks for the suggestions Steve (and Jaymie)

I think I will be able to get this ibc clean this weekend when the weather warms up to a balmy 10 degrees celsius. It was only about 2.8 the day I tried. Been in a bit of a deep freeze here. During this chilly time of year you must add an anti-gel fuel additive to diesels to keep the fuel from gelling up.

OBO, I have just been offered some IBC's that have contained engine oil. Are you still using the same IBC's you mentioned here over a year ago now?. If so I'm guessing you've had no drama's with them? ie; your "bio dewhatsit degreaser" must have done the trick

Yeah Tas - Its all good. They are actually growbeds now.



The degreaser that I used was called '444', comes from a company called chemform I think. I pretty much filled the IBC's with water (got recycled onto the lawn anyway), with the degreaser added at a pretty strong concentration. Left for a week, emptied, put a sprinkler inside (again draining onto the lawn) left for 1/2 hour - they then sat out in the sun for another week - and they smelt fine. Its a lot of stuffing around to make growbeds/fishtanks - but for the price you cant complain.

I am very confident that nothing nasty was released into my system. Well done on finding the thread

Thanks OBO, that's good to know. Fingers crossed I'll have the IBC's in the next few weeks and can get busy building the big system. The excellent search function on this forum is a reflection of the amount of information already on here. Surley by now someone has asked most of the questions I've got!!